Falling into You [COMPLETED]✓

Liquid Heartbreak

I swept the last lock of hair back and fixed it in place with the bobby pin. I barely recognized myself in the mirror. I was pale, ghost-white with dark rims under my eyes. My eyes looked back at me from the mirror, gray as the winter sky and just as empty.  “Nell?” My mother’s voice came from behind me, soft, hesitant. Her hand closed around my arm. I didn’t pull away. “It’s time to go, honey.” I blinked hard, blinked back the nothing. I felt nothing. I felt no tears. I was empty inside, because emptiness was better than agony. I nodded and turned on my heel to sweep past my mother, ignoring the bolt of pain when my cast bumped the doorframe. My dad was holding the front door open, eyes watching me carefully, as if I might explode, or crumble.  Either was possible. But it wouldn’t happen, because you had to feel for that. And I didn’t feel. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing was best. I descended the steps, clicked across the blacktop driveway to my Dad’s boxy Mercedes SUV. I slid into the back seat, drew the buckle across my torso, and waited in the silence. I saw my mother stop in the doorway, facing my father, watched them exchange worried glances at me. After a moment, my dad locked the front door, and they both got into the car. We drove away in silence. My father’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Do you want some music on?” I shook my head but couldn’t find the voice to speak. He looked away and kept driving. My mother twisted in her seat to look at me, opened her mouth to say something. “Don’t, Rachel,” Dad said, touching her arm. “Just leave her be.” I met my dad’s eyes in the rearview mirror, tried to express my gratitude silently, with dead eyes.  Rain fell. Slow, thick drops through still, warm air. Nothing like the storm that stole Kyle. Gray, heavy clouds, low in the sky like a broken ceiling. Wet cement, glinting grass and puddles on the sidewalks. I clutched a crumpled, folded piece of paper in my hand. The note. I had it memorized now. I’d read it and reread it so many times.  The viewing, a small room filled with too many people. I stood next to the casket, refusing to look in. Stood next to a tastefully created collage, pictures of Kyle, of us together. Strangers in the pictures,  I thought, seeing happy me, happy, living him.  Words spoken, empty condolences. Hands squeezing mine, lips brushing my cheek. Weeping friends. Cousins. Becca, hugging me. Jason standing in front of me, not speaking, not hugging me, his offered silence the best thing he could have given me. Then, oh, god…Mr. and Mrs. Calloway, standing in front of me. They’d been here all the while, but I couldn’t see them. Couldn’t bear to meet their eyes. But now they were here, hands clasped and threaded between them, two sets of brown eyes so much like Kyle’s, pinning me, searching me. I’d said little about what happened. There was a storm, a tree fell. Kyle saved me.  Nothing about the proposal, the ring on my finger, the wrong finger. Nothing about the fact that we were arguing. That it should have been me. That if I had done…god, so many things differently, their son would still be alive.  Nothing about his death being my fault. If I had said yes, he would still be alive. We’d have gone up to the bedroom. Made love. The tree would have crashed through the house, but not near us. I stared into their eyes and tried to find words. “I’m so sorry.” It was all I could say, and even that was barely audible, shattered words falling like shards from my tongue.  “Oh, Nell…me, too.” Mrs. Calloway wrapped me in a hug, bawled onto my shoulder. I stood stiff, the physical contact too much. I had to suck in air through my nose and let it out through my mouth into her straight black hair, trembling and tense. I couldn’t let myself feel. If I felt, I would break.  I don’t think she understood that I was begging her forgiveness for killing her son. But those three words were all I could dredge up out of myself. Eventually her husband pulled her away and tucked her into his side while she shuddered.  People came and went, words were spoken. Faces passed in front of me in a blur. I nodded at times, mumbled things. Just so they would know I wasn’t catatonic, that I was physically alive. I wasn’t, though. I breathed. My synapses fired, my blood pumped in a circle. But I was dead, dead with Kyle.  Dad slipped to my side, held me in a one-armed hug. “It’s time, Nell.” I didn’t know what it was time for. I pivoted in his embrace and glanced up at him, brows scrunched.  He saw the question. “To have the service. To close the casket and…bury him.” I nodded. He pulled me to a chair, and I sat down. Mr. Calloway stood with his back to the casket and spoke. I heard his words, but they meant nothing. Words about Kyle, about how wonderful he was, how great he was, how much promise he had, cut short. Cut short. True words, but empty in the face of things. Nothing mattered. Kyle was gone, and words meant nothing.  Mrs. Calloway couldn’t say anything. Jason talked about how Kyle was such a great friend, and those words were true, too.  Then it was my turn. Everyone was looking at me. Waiting. I stood up and walked to where everyone else had stood, behind a little podium with a disconnected microphone. I picked at the wood with my fingernails, which were painted a dark plum by my mother.  I knew then that I was changed. The old Nell would have known what to say, would have found polite and well-meant words, would have spoken about how incredible Kyle was, how loving and thoughtful, how we had a future together.  But none of that came out, because I wasn’t that Nell anymore. “I loved Kyle.” I stared at the blond wood of the podium, because the eyes of the people in the seats would have pierced my armor of numbness, would have spiked through to the river of magma deep inside me that was my emotions. “I loved him so much. I still do, but…he’s gone. I don’t know what else to say.” I pulled off the ring from my right hand and held it up. A few people gasped. “He asked me to marry him. I told him we were too young. I told him…I would go to California with him. He was going to go to Stanford and play football. But I said no, not yet…and now he’s gone.”  I couldn’t hold it in anymore, but I had to. I choked the breakdown back, sucked it in and forced it down. I slipped the ring back on my right hand and walked out of the viewing room without looking into the casket. I knew, from when Grandma Calloway died, that the thing in the casket wasn’t Kyle. It was a shell, a husk, an empty clay gourd. I didn’t want to see that. I wanted to see Kyle in my mind as the strong, gloriously gorgeous Adonis, the way his muscles moved and rippled, the way his hands touched me and the way his sweat mingled with mine.  The problem was, all I could see when I closed my eyes was that one shoe, his eyes hunting for me as the life bled out of him, his hand curling around my fingers and then falling empty and limp as I was carried away.  I left the funeral home, bolting out a back exit and making a beeline across the wet grass for a huge spreading oak that stood behind the building. By the time I was leaning against the rough bark, my black dress was soaked through and sticking to my skin. My hair hung in damp strings past my shoulders. I shuddered, struggling to hold it in. I breathed, choking on my tongue as I tried to literally bite down on sobs.  I turned in place and pressed my forehead to the bark, clenching my teeth and panting, whimpering through my lips. Not crying, not crying. Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t let myself.  I felt a warmth descend over my shoulders, the soft silk of a suit coat. I pushed away from the tree and turned to see a pair of sapphire eyes gazing at me, stunning, piercing, breathtakingly blue. The face was haunting, familiar, chiseled and achingly beautiful like Kyle’s, but more rugged. Older, harder. Rougher. Less perfect, less statuesque. Longish, shaggy black hair, messy and thick and lustrous and raven-black. Colton. Kyle’s brother, older by about five years.  I hadn’t seen Colton in a long, long time. He left home when Kyle and I were just kids, and he hadn’t been back since. I wasn’t even sure where he lived, what he did. I didn’t think he got along with Mr. Calloway, but I wasn’t sure.  Colton didn’t say anything, just settled his suit coat over my shoulders and leaned back against the tree trunk, white button-down soaking through to show his skin, and the dark ink of a tattoo on his arm and shoulder. Something tribal, maybe.  I stared at Colton, and he met my gaze, level and calm but still fraught with unspoken pain. He understood my need for silence. I felt something hard in the inside pocket, stuck my hand in, and withdrew a pack of Marlboros and a Zippo. Colton lifted an eyebrow, taking them from me. He flipped open the top and withdrew a cigarette, flicked the Zippo and lit it. I watched, because watching kept the magma at bay.  He put the filter between his lips and sucked, and I felt something odd happen inside me as his cheeks hollowed. A feeling as if I knew him, although I didn’t. As if I’d always watched him drag on a smoke and blow it out slowly through pursed lips. As if I’d always looked on in disapproval, but never voiced my thoughts. “I know, I know. These things’ll kill me.” His voice was rough and gravelly and deep, but still melodic somehow.  “I didn’t say anything.” That was the most I’d spoken in over forty-eight hours. “You don’t have to. I can see it in your eyes. You disapprove.” “I guess. Smoking is bad. Maybe it’s an inherited dislike.” I shrugged. “I’ve never known anyone who smokes.” “Now you do,” Colton said. “I don’t smoke much. Socially, usually. Or when I’m stressed.” “This counts as stress, I think.” “The death of my baby brother? Yeah. This is a chain-smoking occasion.” He spoke the words casually, almost callously, but I saw the crushing agony in his eyes as he looked away, stared at the glowing orange cherry of his cigarette. “Can I try?” He glanced at me, eyebrow lifted, silently asking if I was sure. He held the white tube toward me, the bottom pinched between two thick fingers. He had grease under his fingernails, and the tips of his fingers were callused, the mark of a guitar player. I took the cigarette and tentatively put it to my lips, held it there for a moment, then sucked in. I tasted harsh air, something like mint, and then I inhaled. My lungs burned and protested, and I blew it out, coughing. Colton laughed, a low chuckle.  I got so dizzy I almost fell over. I put a palm to the tree trunk to balance myself. Colton wrapped a huge hand around my elbow. “First drag’ll make you dizzy. Even now, if it’s been a while, I’ll get dizzy.” He took the cigarette back and drew on it, then blew it out of his nostrils. “Just don’t get addicted, okay? I don’t need that shit, knowing I got you hooked on smoking. It’s a nasty habit. I should quit.” He puffed again, putting the lie to his words. He was slumped back against the tree, hunched over, as if the weight of grief was too much to stand up under. I knew the feeling. I took the cigarette from his fingers, ignoring the strange, unwelcome spark of feeling that shot up my arm when my fingers touched his.  I took a drag, tasted the smoke, blew it out, coughed again, but less this time. I felt the airiness in my head spread. I liked the feeling. I took another, then handed it back. I saw my mother standing in the door I’d left through, watching.  Colton followed my gaze. “Shit. Guess it’s time to go.” “Can I ride with you?” He paused in the act of pushing away from the tree. He stood more than a foot taller than I did, his shoulders like a football player’s pads, arms corded thick. He was huge, I realized. Kyle had been lean and toned. Colton was…something else. Obviously powerful. Hard. Primal.  “Ride with me?” He seemed puzzled by the request. “To the cemetery. They’ll…want to talk. Ask me questions. I can’t…I just can’t.” He took one last drag, then pinched the cherry off with his fingers and stepped on it, stuffed the butt in his pocket. “Sure. Come on.” I followed him to a Ford F-250 with huge tires and diesel exhaust pipes behind the cab. It was splattered with mud and had a lockbox in the bed. He walked next to me, not touching me, just there. I heard my mom’s voice in the distance but ignored her. I couldn’t handle the questions I knew she’d have.  Colton opened the passenger door, offered me his hand, and lifted me up. Again I felt an awful, powerful lightning bolt of energy zap through me at his touch. Guilt assailed me.  I passed close to him as I stepped up into the cab. He smelled of cigarettes and cologne and something indefinable. I saw him swallow hard and look away, letting go of my hand as soon as possible. He wiped his palm on his pants leg, as if to erase the memory of a thrill from the touch.  He was in the cab next to me a moment later, twisting the key to start the truck with a throaty rumble. The leather seats vibrated under my thighs, not unpleasantly. I slipped out of his coat and set it on the seat between us. As the truck started, music blared from the speakers, male and female voices raised in haunting harmony: “…if I die before I wake…I know the Lord my soul won’t take…I’m a dead man walking…I’m a dead man walking…” Something snapped in my chest, and I had to clench my teeth until my jaw hurt to keep from crumbling. “What—who is this?” I asked, the words raw and rasped. “The Civil Wars. The song is called ‘Barton Hollow.’” “It’s amazing.” “You’ve heard thirty seconds.” I shrugged. “It…speaks to me.” He touched something on the dashboard, and the song started from the beginning. I listened, rapt. The next song grabbed me, too, and Colton drove, unspeaking, letting me listen. The burgeoning pressure in my chest lessened with the power of the music. All the while, I felt Colton’s presence in the truck like a hot spike of awareness. He filled the four-door cab until I felt almost claustrophobic. Almost. Except…his presence was—somehow—a balm on the open wound of my heart.  This fact alone was enough to cause a river of guilt. I shouldn’t feel this. Shouldn’t feel anything. There should be no balm, no comfort.  I didn’t deserve it. There was an awning set up over the open grave, two rows of chairs. The rain had turned cold. I shivered as I stepped down out of the cab, and Colton was there again, opening the door and extending his hand.  He seemed too rough, too big, too hard around the edges to be such a gentleman. He was a contradiction. Grease under his fingernails. Hand hard and callused, like gritty concrete under my soft palm as I stepped down from the cab. His eyes skittered over mine, held on me for a brief moment, wavered as if searching, as if memorizing. His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. His eyes narrowed and he licked his lips, releasing my hand after holding it for a beat too long.  He sucked in a deep breath, stuck his hand in his pants pocket, and jingled his keys. “Let’s do this,” he said with a sigh. I followed him. I didn’t want to do this. I wanted to run away. I didn’t want to watch the wooden box containing the corpse of my first love lowered into the ground. I nearly turned and ran.  Then Colton stopped, startling blue eyes piercing me. He just nodded, a brief dip of his chin, but it was enough to put one of my feet in front of the other, carrying me to the grave. He knew my thoughts, it seemed. He knew I wanted to run. But he couldn’t know that, shouldn’t know that. He didn’t, couldn’t know me. I’d met him twice in my life. He was Kyle’s older brother.  I felt my mother’s eyes on me as I stopped at the dark cherrywood casket. I put my fingers to my lips to keep in the sounds, the emotions. I felt my father’s eyes on me. I felt Mr. and Mrs. Calloway’s eyes on me. Everyone’s eyes on me. I put my hand to the cold wood, since that seemed to be expected of me. I wanted nothing more than to climb into the box with him and quit breathing, find him in whatever came after life.  I stumbled as I turned, high heel catching in the grass. Colton’s hand shot out and steadied me, yet again. Electric touch, ignored. He let go immediately, and I sat down. A preacher or minister in a black suit with a black shirt and the little white thing at his collar stood over the grave, intoning Bible verses and rote words of supposed comfort.  I couldn’t breathe. I was choking on the bottled-up emotion. I had a flower in my hand somehow, and the casket was being lowered into the awful black chasm. I stood over the hole and tossed in the flower, as expected.  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. No one heard, but it wasn’t for anyone but Kyle anyway. “Goodbye, Kyle. I love you.” I turned then, and ran. Kicked off the heels and ran barefoot through the grass, across the gravel parking lot, ignoring the voices calling me.  The cemetery was only a few miles away from my parents’ house, from home, from Kyle’s house. I followed the dirt road, ignoring the stabbing pain when rocks dug into my feet. I welcomed the pain, the physical pain. I just ran. Ran. Off-balance with one arm in a cast. Each step jostled my broken arm, adding to my pain. I turned on the correct street and ran some more. I heard a car pull up next to me, heard my father’s voice pleading with me. Rain pelted on my head, still the rain, always the rain, nonstop rain since the day he died. I ignored my dad, shook my head, wet hair slapping my chin. I think I was crying, but the rain mingled with the hot salt.  Another car, another voice, ignored. Run, run, running. Dress wet against my skin, clinging, flapping against my thighs. Feet aching, burning, stabbing. Arm excruciating, jolted with every step. Then footsteps taking space-eating strides, rhythmic, unhurried, the pace of a runner. I knew who it would be. He didn’t try to keep up, and I tried to pretend, just for a moment, that it was Kyle behind me, letting me run ahead so he could stare at my ass. That thought, that image, that memory of Kyle’s easy lope behind me had me struggling for breath, fighting against the swell of tears.  I ran harder, and his stride behind me increased. I shook my head, hair slapping into my mouth, wet. After a few more strides, he was next to me, shirt wet and transparent, tie gone, buttons open to mid-chest. He kept pace with me easily. He didn’t speak, didn’t even look at me. Just ran next to me. Our breathing began to sync, huffing in two steps, huffing out two steps, a too-familiar rhythm. A mile from home, I stepped on a large rock in the road and twisted my ankle, flying forward. Before I could hit the ground, I was in Colton’s arms. He slowed to a walk with me in a fireman’s carry, one arm beneath my knees, the other around my shoulders. He was breathing hard, and there was a hitch in his step.  “I can walk,” I said. Colton stopped and let me down. As soon as I put weight on my ankle, however, it gave out, and I had to hop to stay upright.  “Let me carry you,” Colton said.  “No.” I gripped his bicep in my hand, gritting my teeth and taking a step. It hurt, but I could do it.  I would not be carried. There would be too many questions if I showed up at home in Colton’s arms. There would already be a barrage, I knew.  The real reason, though, was because it had felt too right, being nestled in his arms. Too comforting. Too natural. Too much like home.  Guilt assailed me once more, and I intentionally put too much weight on my twisted ankle, sending pain throbbing through my leg. The pain was good. It distracted me. Gave me a reason to whimper past clenched teeth and brush away the tears. I was crying from the pain in my ankle, and that would pass. I wouldn’t cry from the pain in my heart, because that wouldn’t fade. It only grew heavier and harder and sharper with every passing minute, hour, day.  I stumbled, and Colton’s hand steadied me. “At least lean on me, Nell,” he said. “Don’t be stubborn.” I stopped, foot lifted slightly. Hesitating. Considering.  “No.” I shook his hand off, lowered my foot, and took a natural step. No limping, no hobbling.  It hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe, and that was good. It pushed away the guilt. Pushed away the hurt in my soul. Pushed away the waking nightmare, the knowledge that Kyle was gone forever. Gone. Dead. Lost.  Killed, saving me. I took another step and let the agony wash through me. I ducked my head so my hair fell around my face, obscuring my vision to either side. I heard Colton’s step beside me, heard his breathing, smelled the acrid, faded scent of cigarette smoke and the fainter cologne and the ripe sweat of exertion. Man smell. Uniquely Colton, and entirely too comforting, all too familiar.  It took a long, long time to walk the mile home, and my ankle was swollen, throbbing, lances of pain rocketing up my leg and into my hip. I pushed open the front door, ignored my parents in the den, who shot to their feet and called my name. Colton had followed me in. “She twisted her ankle,” he told them. “I think it’s sprained.” “Thank you for going with her,” Dad said. I heard the suspicion in his voice as I listened from the top of the stairs. “No problem.” I heard Colton’s foot squeak on the marble, and then the door open.  “I’m sorry for your loss, Colton.” My mom’s voice. “Yeah.” That was it from him, just that one word, and then the door closed and he was gone. I hobbled into my room, letting myself limp now that I was alone. I shut my door and stripped off my dress, my rain-soaked panties, then wrapped plastic around my cast and stepped into the shower. Hot water, scalding on my lower back, scouring away the pain, but not the guilt. When the water ran lukewarm, I stepped out, toweled off, wrapped myself in my robe, and curled on my bed under a pile of blankets. The silence in my room was profound.  I closed my eyes and saw Kyle, crushed under the tree, spiked through, bleeding, breath whistling. I heard his voice whispering “I love you…I love you…” over and over again, until he had no more breath and the sirens in the distance hailed his passing.  I heard my door open, felt the bed dip as Mom sat down next to me. I squeezed my eyes shut, felt something hot and wet trickle down my cheek. It wasn’t a tear. I wouldn’t cry. Couldn’t. To let it go would be to open my soul. It would never stop. I would break…just shatter. The liquid on my cheek was blood, surging out from my ripped and tattered heart.  “Nell…sweetheart.” Mom’s voice was soft, tentative. I felt her shift the blankets and probe my ankle with a finger. “Oh, god, Nell. You need to see a doctor. Your ankle is swollen and purple.” I shook my head. “Just wrap it. Ice it. It’s not broken.” She sighed, sat silent for a long minute, then came back with an ice pack and an ACE bandage. When I was iced and wrapped, she sat down again. “I didn’t know you knew Colton.” “I don’t.” “You were smoking.” I didn’t answer. I had no reason or excuse to give her. “Talk to me, baby.” I shook my head. “And say what?” I pulled the blanket over my head.  Mom tugged it down and brushed my damp hair out of my eye. “I can’t say it will stop hurting. It’ll just get easier to deal with it.”  Her older brother had died in a car accident when Mom was in college. She still got choked up when she talked about him. They had been very close, I think. “I don’t want it to get easier.” “Why?” She took the brush from my nightstand and tugged on me until I sat up. She brushed my hair with long, smooth strokes, reminding me of when I was a girl. She would sing to me and brush my hair before bed.  “Because if it gets easier…I’ll forget him.” I still had the note clutched in my cast-clad hand. I took it in my free hand and opened it, read it. The paper was damp, the blue ink faded but still legible.  I heard Mom sigh, something like a sob. “Oh, honey. No. I promise you, you’ll never forget him. But you have to let yourself heal. It’s not a betrayal of his memory to let go of the pain. He would want you to be okay.” I strangled on something thick and hot in my throat. I had thought exactly that. If I stopped remembering, if I tried to let go of the pain, it would be a betrayal of him. Of us. “It’s not your fault, Nell.”  I shuddered, and my breath failed me. “Sing to me? Like you used to?”  I had to distract her. I couldn’t tell her how it was my fault. She would just try to convince me it wasn’t.  She sighed, as if seeing through my tactic. She took a breath, stroking my hair with the brush, and sang. She sang “Danny’s Song” by Kenny Loggins. It was her favorite song, and I knew all the words from having listened to her sing it to me at night, all as I was growing up.  When the last note quavered from her throat, I shuddered again, feeling more heart-blood leak out from my eye. I didn’t wipe it away, just let it slip into my lips, down my chin.  Mom set the brush down and stood up. “Sleep, Nell.” I nodded and lay down. Eventually I slept, and dreamed. Haunted dreams, tortured dreams. Kyle’s eyes on me, dying; Colton’s eyes on me, knowing. I read the note again, seven times. Recited the words under my breath like a poem. I woke up, and the clock read 3:38 a.m. I couldn’t breathe from the pressure of grief. The walls of my room closed in around me, pressed in on my skull. I took off the melted bag of ice and rewrapped my ankle, then put on my favorite loose sweatpants and a hoodie. Kyle’s hoodie. It smelled of him, and that only made the pressure on my chest worse, but the smell comforted me as well. It pierced through the numbness and touched my heart, pinched it with hot fingers. I descended quietly, slowly, awkwardly, not able to use my foot much. Out the back door, down the steps, onto the cobblestone path leading to the dock.  Quiet guitar strains floated to me from the Calloways’ dock. I knew who it was. The grass was wet with dew and old rain under foot, cold, bracing. The night air was thin and cool, sky a black blanket strewn with silver. My bare feet were silent on the smooth-worn wood of the dock. The guitar chords didn’t falter, but I knew he knew it was me.  He was leaning back in an Adirondack chair, feet stretched out in front of him, guitar held on his stomach. A bottle of liquor sat next to him. “You should have shoes on,” he said, picking a slow, lilting melody.  I didn’t answer. A second chair sat a few feet away from Colton’s, and he held the guitar by the neck as he reached out to drag the chair closer.  I eased into it, aware of his tension, his hand waiting to reach out to help me.  “How’s the foot?” He lifted the bottle to his lips, took a long sip, then handed it to me.  “Hurts.” I took a hesitant sip. Whiskey burned my throat. “Ohmigod, what is that?” I hissed, rasping and coughing. Colton chuckled. “Jameson Irish Whiskey, baby. The best whiskey there is.” He reached down to the other side of the chair and handed me a beer. “Here. Chase it with that.” I took it and cracked the tab, sipped. “Trying to get me drunk?” He shrugged. “You can always say no.” “Does it help?” I asked. He sipped from his own beer. “I don’t know. I’m not drunk enough yet.” He took another shot from the Jameson. “I’ll let you know.” “Maybe I’ll find out on my own.” “Maybe you will. Just don’t tell our parents you got the alcohol from me. You’re underage.” “What alcohol?” I took another fiery slug from the whiskey. I felt lightheaded, loose. The pressure of guilt and grief didn’t dissipate, but it did seem to be pushed to the back by the weight of the whiskey. “If you don’t drink much, I’d hold off on any more. It tends to sneak up on you.” I handed the bottle back and clutched the cold beer can in my fist. “How do you know I’m not a hard drinker?” Colton laughed openly. “Well, I guess I don’t know for sure. But you’re not.” “How can you tell?” “You’re a good girl. Kyle wouldn’t have dated a party girl.” He lifted his hips up and dug in his jeans pocket for his smokes and lighter. “Besides, your reaction when you took the first shot told me enough.” “You’re right. I’m not a drinker. Kyle and I got hammered once. It was awful.” “It can be fun if you do it right. But hangovers always suck.” He blew a plume of gray, dissipating into the starry sky. We sat in silence for a while, and Colton kept drinking. I let the buzz roll over me, helped it along with a second beer.  “You can’t hold it in forever,” Colton said, apropos of nothing. “Yes, I can.” I had to. “You’ll go crazy. It’ll come out, one way or another.” “Better crazy than broken.” I wasn’t sure where that came from, hadn’t thought it or meant to say it. “You’re not broken. You’re hurting.” He stood up unsteadily and strolled to the edge of the dock. I heard a zipper, then the sound of urination.  I blushed in the darkness. “Did you really have to do that right in front of me?” I asked, voice tremoring with irritation and laughter.  He zipped up and turned to face me, swaying in place. “Sorry. Guess that was kinda rude, huh? I wasn’t thinking.” “Damn right it was rude.” “I said I’m sorry. Didn’t take you for the squeamish type, though.” “I’m not squeamish. I just have to pee, too, and I can’t do it like you did, right off the dock.” He chuckled. “Oh…well…I don’t know what to tell you. You could try squatting off the edge?” I snorted. “Sshh-yeah. That’d work real well. I’d either fall in or pee on my ankles. Probably both.” “I wouldn’t let you fall in.” “I don’t doubt that.” I levered myself to an upright position, struggling to find my balance without putting too much weight on my ankle. Colton’s hand settled on my shoulder, steadying me.  “Going up?” Colton asked. I nodded. “Coming back?” I shrugged. “Probably. I couldn’t sleep any more if I tried.” Colton left my side to screw the cap on the bottle of Jameson. I waited until he was next to me again, and then we made our way up the path. When I started to veer left toward my house, Colton tugged on my arm.  “Mom and Dad have a bathroom in the basement. It’s a walkout, so you wouldn’t have to go up any stairs.” I knew this from years spent shuttling between my house and Kyle’s, but I didn’t say so. He went in ahead of me, turning on the lights. Waited for me outside, and helped me back down to the dock, offering a silent, stabilizing presence when my feet slipped in the wet grass.  We settled back into our chairs, and he picked up his guitar, strummed a few chords, then began to play a song. I knew the song within a few chords: “Reminder” by Mumford & Sons. I thought he’d only play, so I was stunned when he took a breath and began to sing the words in a low, melodic, raspy voice. He didn’t just play the song as it was, though. He twisted it, changed it, made it his. It was already a beautiful, haunting song, but Colton’s version touched something in my soul.  I closed my eyes and listened, feeling the pressure lessen, just a little. I didn’t open my eyes when he finished. “Will you play something else? Please?” “Sure. What do you want to hear?”  I shrugged, leaning my head back against the chair. Colton strummed a few times, then cleared his throat. I heard the liquid glug as he took a shot from the bottle. I felt the cold glass touch my hand, and I took it and drank without opening my eyes. The burn was welcome now. I was feeling a measure of peace, tipsy and floating. The guilt and the grief were still there, banked coals burning underneath the alcohol haze. Colton began another song, and I recognized this one too. “This is ‘Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ by Simon and Garfunkel.” The way Colton announced the song and artist made me think he’d done this before, that he was falling into a habit. Was he a performer? He again seemed just too big, too rough, too primal and hard of a man to sit in coffeehouses behind a microphone playing indie folk songs. Yet…hearing him play and raise his voice to sing the high opening notes, it seemed only natural.  I was stunned by the rough beauty of his voice. He turned the song into a poem. I wished desperately, in that moment, to find my own bridge over the troubled waters of my grief. But there was none. Only the raging river of unshed tears.  When the song ended, Colton shifted into another song, one I didn’t know and he didn’t announce, rolling and low and soft, a circular melody that drifted up and down the register. He hummed in places, a deep bass throb in the bottom of his throat. Something about the song struck through the alcohol and the numb armor around my grief. There were no words, but it was an elegy nonetheless. I couldn’t have explained it, but the song just exuded grief, spoke of mourning. I felt thick heat at the back of my throat, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to contain it this time. I tried. I tried to choke it down like vomit, but it came up anyway, spurting past my teeth in ragged whimpers. I heard myself gasp, and then keen high in my throat, a long, tortured moan.  Colton clapped his hands over the strings, silencing them. “Nell? You okay?”  His voice was the the impetus that pushed me over the edge. I shot up out of the chair, hopping away off the dock, limping. I ran, hobbling desperately. I hit the grass and kept going. Not for the house, not for the road, just…going. Away. Anywhere. I ended up in the sand, where my feet sank deep and slipped. I fell to my knees, sobs clattering in my throat, shivering in my mouth.  I crawled across the sand, pulled myself to the softly lapping water’s edge. Agony bolted through my arm as it slid over the sand. Cold liquid licked my fingertips. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks, but I was silent still. I heard Colton’s feet crunching in the sand, saw his bare feet stop a foot away, toes curling in the sand, rocking back on his heels, digging deep as he crouched next to me.  “Leave me alone.” I managed to grate the words past my clenched teeth. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t move, either. I dragged deep breaths in and out, fighting to keep it in.  “Let go, Nell. Just let it out.” “I can’t.” “No one will know. It’ll be our secret.” I could only shake my head, tasting sand on my lips. My breathing turned desperate, ragged, puffing into the grit of the beach. His hand touched my shoulder blade.  I writhed away, but his hand stayed in place as if attached. That simple, innocent touch was fire on my skin, burning through me and unlocking the gates around my sorrow. It was just a single sob at first, a quick, hysterical inhalation. Then a second. And then I couldn’t stop it. Tears, a flood of them. I felt the sand grow cold and muddy under my face, felt my body shuddering uncontrollably. He didn’t tell me it was okay. He didn’t try to pull me against him or onto his lap. He kept his hand on my shoulder and sat silent next to me.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d let go, and now the river would flow un-dammed.  No. No. I shook my head, clenched my teeth, lifted up and let myself fall down hard, sending a spear of pain spiderwebbing out from my arm. The pain was a drug, and I accepted it greedily. It was a dam, stemming the tide of tears. I panted, a whine emitting from my throat. I forced myself up, scrambling in the sand like a madwoman, hair wild and caked with grit. Colton stood up, caught my arm, and lifted me to my feet. I landed hard, too hard, and I couldn’t stop the cry of pain as my ankle jarred. I fell forward, into Colton.  He caught me, of course.  He smelled of alcohol, cologne, cigarettes. His arms circled my shoulders and held me in place. The sobs rose and fell within me, brought up by guilt from finding pleasure and comfort, doused by the same. I let my forehead rest under his chin, just for a moment. Only a moment. Just till I caught my breath. It didn’t mean anything.  It’s just a moment of comfort, Kyle. I found myself talking to him, as if he could hear me. It doesn’t mean anything. I love you. Only you. But then he shifted, looking down at me. So of course, I had to tilt my head up and meet his eyes. Damn his eyes, so soft, so piercing and bright and blue and beautiful. His eyes… they drowned me. Sucked me in. Dark sapphire laced with cornflower blue, sky blue, ice blue, so many shades of blue.  I fell forward, into him. I tasted Jameson on his breath, heat on my lips, moist soft heat and scouring power of his lips. It was only a moment, the briefest instant of contact. A kiss, an instant of weakness like the inevitable pull of gravity.  Awareness rifled through me, struck me like a dagger to the heart.  I threw myself bodily backward, out of his arms, away from the drowning comfort of his arms, his lips.  “What am I doing?” I stumbled back, back. “What am I doing? What the fuck am I doing?” I turned and limped away as fast as I could, barely hanging on to my sanity, barely keeping the guilt from eating me alive. Colton followed, ran around in front of me and stopped me with his hands on my shoulders. “Wait, Nell. Wait. Just wait.” I wrenched free. “Don’t touch me. That…that was wrong. So wrong. I’m sorry…so sorry.” He shook his head, eyes boiling with emotion. “No, Nell. It just happened. I’m sorry, too. It just happened. It’s okay.” “It’s not okay!” I was nearly yelling. “How can I kiss you when he’s dead? When the man I love is gone? How can I kiss you when…when I—when Kyle—” “It’s not your fault. I let it happen, too. It’s not your fault. It just happened.” He kept saying that, as if he could see the guilt, the secret weight of awful knowledge.  “Stop saying that!” The words were torn from me before I could stop them. “You don’t know! You weren’t there! He’s dead and I—” I chomped down on the last two words.  Thinking them, knowing them to be true was one thing; saying them out loud to Kyle’s brother, whom I just kissed, was another. He was close to me again, somehow. Not touching, but only an inch separating us. That sliver of air between us crackled, sparked, and spat.  “We’re not talking about the kiss anymore, are we?” His voice throbbed low, wired with passion, understanding. I shook my head, my only answer for so many things. “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t…” I could only turn away, and this time Colton Calloway let me leave. He watched me; I could feel his eyes on me. I could feel him knowing my thoughts, delving deep into my secret soul, where guilt and grief festered like an abscess. I made it to my room, to my bed. My eyes closed, and all I saw was Kyle dying, over and over again. Between the images of his last indrawn breath, I saw Colton. His face growing closer, his mouth on mine.  I wanted to cry, to scream, to sob. But I couldn’t. Because if I did, I’d never stop. Never never. There would only be an ocean of tears.  Hot heart-blood leaked from my face. From my eyes and my nose and my mouth. Not tears, because those would never stop. This was just liquid heartbreak seeping from my pores. The mountain of pressure, the weight of grief and guilt…it was all I could feel. It was all I would ever feel. I knew that. I knew, too, that I would learn to be normal once again, someday. To live, to be, to seem okay.  Okay would only ever be skin deep, though. The note was under my pillow. I unfolded it, gazed at it. …And now we’re learning how to fall in love together. I don’t care what anyone else says. I love you. I’ll always love you, no matter what happens with us in the future. I love you now and forever.  I saw the splotch where my tear had fallen, staining the blue pen strokes black in a sudden Rorschach pattern. Another wet drop splatted on the paper, just beneath the writing this time. I let it sink in and stain. The slanting downstroke of the “Y” in his scrawled signature blurred and became blotted. Eventually the slow leak stopped, and I fell asleep. I dreamed of brown eyes and blue, of a ghost beside me, loving me, and of a flesh and blood man sitting on a dock, drinking whiskey, playing guitar, and remembering an illicit kiss. In the dream, he wondered what it meant. In the dream, he stole into my room and kissed me again. I woke from that dream sweating and shaking and nauseous with guilt.